U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Oct. 14 for protecting civilians in the Gaza Strip and Israel as he intensified his diplomatic outreach across the Middle East and beyond to rally an international response to prevent the Israel-Hamas war from expanding.
US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin arrived in Israel on Oct. 13, marking a high-level show of support for Israel as the country’s war with Hamas enters its seventh day. Austin was met by the Ministry of Defense Director General Maj. Gen. Eyal Zamir, alongside IDF Deputy Chief of General Staff Maj. Gen. Amir Baram, when he arrived in an American cargo plan at Nevatim air base in southern Israel, according to a statement by the MoD. He arrived with “armaments for the use of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). The supplies were procured and transported to enhance the preparedness of Israel’s security forces for the ongoing conflict,” the statement read said.
Russia and North Korea are building a military partnership amid heavy U.S. sanctions and support for Ukraine, according to a new assessment by the National Security Council. Council spokesman John Kirby briefed reporters on a map allegedly showing lethal aid flowing from North Korea to Russia to supply the latter’s invasion of Ukraine. In the last month or so, he said, “1,000 containers of military equipment and munitions” have followed this route.
In Episode 150 of the Aerospace Advantage podcast, Tim Ryan sits down with seasoned space operator Brian “Flasher” Goodman, Tom “Pumper” Nichols, Chief Product Officer at True Anomaly; and the Mitchell Institute’s Charles Galbreath to explore ideas around Competitive Endurance. With threats on orbit on the rise, it is crucial to define this strategic concept and explore how it ties to key concepts like integrated defense, space superiority, and maintaining the sustainability of the space domain.
A KC-135 Stratotanker aerial refueling jet belonging to the Iowa Air National Guard crash-landed on a Sioux City runway Oct. 11 when its front landing gear failed to deploy, the Air Force said in a release. Five airmen from Iowa’s 185th Air Refueling Wing were on the flight at the time, according to the release. None were injured.
A Joint Task Force will begin defueling Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility on Oct. 16, the first step in an arduous, yearslong process to drain and close the facility and remediate the aquifer, after fuel spills in 2021 contaminated the drinking water for tens of thousands of people.
Despite a barrage of hefty bonuses, loosened and more progressive enlistment requirements, and even the creation of innovative pre-boot camp programs, the U.S. military mostly fell short in efforts to bring more Americans into the services over the past year—and it’s unclear how or when that will change. Of the five Defense Department service branches, only two met their Active-Duty enlisted recruiting goals for fiscal 2023—the Marine Corps and the Space Force, by far the smallest services and with the lightest recruiting burden. The others, the Army, Air Force and Navy, fell short.
Ukrainian pilots are expected to begin training to fly the F-16 fighter jet at an Air National Guard base in Tuscon, Ariz., this week, according to four U.S. officials. A small number of pilots, who arrived in the United States last month to participate in an English language course at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, have passed their first test for English proficiency and are headed to Morris Air National Guard Base in Arizona, according to one of the officials.
Capt. Daniel Reynolds graduated from the U.S. military’s Ranger School this week, becoming the first Space Force Guardian to earn a Ranger tab. He is effectively the military’s first “Space Ranger.” Reynolds was awarded his Ranger tab on Friday, Oct. 13. At the graduation ceremony, Capt. Reynolds was presented the Ranger tab by his father, Army Col. John Reynolds, himself a Ranger. Reynolds is the first of likely many more Guardians to earn the tab in the service’s future.
The Air Force has received technical data rights from Boeing to support Boeing's MH-139 Grey Wolf helicopter program depot maintenance, an Air Force spokesperson told Inside Defense . MH-139A is a multimission helicopter developed by Boeing and Leonardo that will replace the Bell UH-1N Iroquois to protect U.S. intercontinental ballistic missile installations as well as transport U.S. government officials and security forces, according to Boeing.
Even before the recent Rocket Lab failure, people were tossing around the word “monopoly” when it came to SpaceX. It had become increasingly clear that companies needing to launch their satellites in the near future had few options beyond SpaceX, particularly those spacecraft too large to launch on a small vehicle like Electron, as other launch providers stumbled.
Nearly 50 years since its founding, the U.S. Global Positioning System is in danger of losing its cachet as the world’s gold-standard location service.
Air Force football is ranked 22nd in both the Coaches Poll and the Associated Press poll. The Falcons are ranked for the first time since the final season poll in 2019 when the team was 22nd in the AP poll and 23rd in the coaches poll. This is coming after Air Force comeback win against Wyoming on Saturday. The regular season ranking is the first since Oct. 3, 2010, when Air Force was ranked 25th in the AP poll.
